1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to systems, media, and control methods for a computer, and more particularly, to a system, medium, and method for controlling a computer system to turn on/off a cooling fan to cool down a central processing unit (CPU) based on a user's choice, and to efficiently control heat generated from the CPU while the cooling fan is turned off.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, integration levels of chips and clock speeds of CPUs have dramatically increased, enhancing performance of computer systems. However, the CPUs have become heated to very high temperatures due to the increased clock speeds of the CPUs, thereby resulting in the CPUs becoming defective or permanently damaged.
To prevent the CPU from becoming defective or damaged due to this CPU overheating, various solutions have been recommended. One of these solutions is to install a cooling fan near the CPU, sense temperatures within the CPU, and correspondingly turn on/off the cooling fan based on the sensed temperatures.
FIG. 1 is a control block of a conventional computer system using a cooling fan 130 to cool down a central processing unit (CPU) 170. As illustrated, the computer system can include a thermal diode 162 whose resistance changes in relation to changes in temperature within the CPU 170, a temperature sensor 164 sensing a voltage change, in accordance with the changing resistance of the thermal diode 162 and generating a corresponding temperature sensing signal, and a microcomputer 110 driving the cooling fan 130 based on the temperature sensing signal from the temperature sensor 164.
The conventional computer system has an advantage of offering stable operation of the CPU 170 by cooling down the CPU 170 using the fan 130, but it also suffers from a problem of noise being generated by the cooling fan 130.
Therefore, inventors of the present invention have found that a user may want to turn off the cooling fan 130 to reduce the noise generated therefrom if the user is working on the computer in a quiet place or performing simple word processing, for example.
On the other hand, if the user is working in a graphically heavy environment, requiring greater use of the CPU 170, the CPU 170 becomes heated to very high temperatures, and thus the cooling fan 130 also needs to be driven at maximum speed, requiring the user to endure the noise generated therefrom. This problem also needs to be solved.